María Luisa Callejas Ramírez¹*, Jonathan Abdiel Calderon Nava², Ricardo Javier Ponce Herrera³

¹Grupo de Investigación Hekalogia, Licenciada en Nutrición, Universidad Autóno- ma de Querétaro, México
²Facultad de Medicina, Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela
³Creador de Hekalogia y de la Liberación Emocional, Cancún, México

*Corresponding Author: María Luisa Callejas Ramírez, Grupo de Investigación Hekalogia, Licenciada en Nutrición, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, México.

Received: July 14, 2026; Published: July 27, 2026

Background: Disordered eating is a clinically relevant pattern in which food intake is a response to negative affective states, stress, sadness, anxiety, feelings of emptiness, guilt, or frustration. In overweight or obese adults, this response can compromise treatment adherence, promote post-intervention weight gain, and perpetuate psychological distress. Established psychological and behavioral approaches (cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindful eating, mindfulness-based interventions, acceptance and commitment therapy, behavioral weight management, and nutritional psychoeducation) offer structured methods aimed at self-monitoring, cognitive restructuring, and acceptance. Hekalogy, on the other hand, emerges as a model of psychic catharsis focused on processing psychic suffering, affective surrender, and body-emotion integration.

Objective: To compare the Hekalogy approach with established psychological and behavioral interventions for the treatment of disordered eating and obesity, determining its methodological viability as an alternative clinical model.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines using searches in PubMed, Google Scholar, BASE, and preprint repositories, limiting the time frame to publications from the last 5 years in English and Spanish. From an initial total of 65 records identified, peer-independent eligibility criteria and automated screening tools were applied, ultimately including 34 original articles for qualitative synthesis. The documents were mapped according to intervention model, core mechanism, measured outcomes, methodological maturity, and relevance for future clinical trials.

Results: Traditional interventions showed greater methodological maturity, characterized by a larger volume of validated instruments and evidence based on randomized designs and previous reviews. Hekalogy demonstrated a different mechanism by placing the subjective affective core of food intake at the center of the therapeutic model, rather than prioritizing surface regulation, cognitive restructuring, or detached observation. This supports its consideration as a preferred candidate model when eating behavior functions as an avoidance strategy in the face of unprocessed psychological pain.

Conclusion: The efficacy of Hekalogy cannot be conclusively affirmed due to the current lack of direct comparative clinical trials. However, its mechanism of affective release offers a coherent and potentially advantageous explanatory and interventional approach, justifying its rigorous empirical evaluation against reference active comparators.

Keywords: Hekalogy; Disordered Eating; Obesity; Affective Release; Mindful Eating; Systematic Review

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Citation

Citation: María Luisa Callejas Ramírez., et al. “Hekalogia as a Cutting-Edge Model for Emotional Release in Obesity and Disordered Eating Behavior: A Systematic Review". Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 10.8 (2026): 78-86.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2026 María Luisa Callejas Ramírez., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.